On 11-Mar-2009, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
> Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> writes:
>
> > I am wondering which is of more use to the end users as
> > well: I can always get the sources of the package I have
> > already on my disk from Debian, but getting the latest
> > munged source seems more useful to me.
>
> Full ACK. The way to get the current upstream source for a debian
> package is "apt-get source" or equivalent and then using the
> orig.tar.gz. Duplicating this in debian/rules seems wastefull.
That's not quite the same thing though. That will get the original
source archive *as in the Debian repository*; while the existing and
proposed ‘get-orig-source’ target gets the original source archive
*from the canonical upstream location itself*.
It's worth asking, then, what is the original purpose for which the
‘get-orig-source’ target specification was inserted into the policy?
* To get some copy of the original source archive. If so, that is
entirely redundant with making it available in the Debian
repository. Does anyone think this is what was intended by the
drafters of that policy clause?
* To get the *latest* version of the package as an original source
archive, regardless of the Debian version of the package. This is
largely duplicated by ‘uscan(1)’, but not for all cases.
* To get the original source archive corresponding to the package
directly from the canonical upstream location. That is the purpose
of the patch I've submitted to this bug report.
* To do something else. I haven't seen any other options not covered
here, but that doesn't mean the truth might not be different.
What is our best resource for discovering which of these options is
the actual intent of the ‘get-orig-source’ target when it was inserted
into policy?
--
\ “I took a course in speed waiting. Now I can wait an hour in |
`\ only ten minutes.” —Steven Wright |
_o__) |
Ben Finney <ben@benfinney.id.au>